The present invention relates to a monocoque type rotor blade which comprises a shell manufactured of fiber reinforced synthetic material. The reinforcing fibers extend at least in the zone of the leading edge of the blade unidirectionally in the longitudinal direction of the blade. The fiber strands extend out of the blade proper and into the blade root.
Rotor blades of this type, for example, as disclosed in German patent publication (DE-OS) No. 30 14 347 are preferably connected to a rotor hub in a hingeless manner by means of so-called tension bolts which are subject to tension loads only. However, heretofore, it has been necessary to limit the monocoque type construction to the blade shell proper if it was desired to avoid additional hardware for the blade root. Thus, the blade shell proper was constructed to comprise a support core between two cover skins which support core is soft relative to tension forces or loads. The cover skins were constructed of fiber reinforced synthetic material. In this connection reference is made to German Patent Publication (DE-OS) No. 2,832,098. Additionally, it is necessary to employ for the rotors of large scale wind energy collecting windmills a flange type bearing adapter which must conform to the blade angle bearing. Such adapter is necessary because the blades for such large scale rotors require an adjustability of the pitch angle of the rotor blades and because of the wing profile of the blade root section. Besides, this type of prior art construction is rather heavy which is undesirable for lightweight structures.